Emergent objects: designing through performance

This paper presents Emergent Objects 2, a portfolio of sub-projects funded by the EPSRC/AHRC Designing for the Twenty-first Century (D4C21) initiative. Our focus is on the way interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration allows fluidity and responsiveness in uncertain design contexts. Resisting the Modernist, instrumental conception of design, Emergent Objects 2 does not propose an alternative model for direct emulation. Rather, the aim is to defamiliarise the design process; and to play with its nature and possibilities. The notion of a singular designer is displaced by the notion of a collaborative design process, whereby any participant is an active design agent, partaking in design functions. The paper explores how key performance concepts of play and embodied knowing are employed within our design practices, with illustrations from the three subprojects: Snake, SpiderCrab and Hoverflies.